column twice a
year describing her spring and fall openings. On these occasions Aunt
Sophy, in black satin and marcel wave and her most relentless corsets,
was, in all the superficial things, not a pleat or fold or line or wave
behind her city colleagues. She had all the catch phrases:

"This is awfully good this year."

"Here's a sweet thing. A Mornet model."

"... Well, but, my dear, it's the style--the line--you're paying for,
not the material."

"No, that hat doesn't do a thing for you."

"I've got it. I had you in mind when I bought it. Now don't say you
can't wear henna. Wait till you see it on."

When she stood behind you as you sat, uncrowned and expectant before
the mirror, she would poise the hat four inches above your head,
holding it in the tips of her fingers, a precious, fragile thing. Your
fascinated eyes were held by it, and your breath as well. Then down it
descended, slowly, slowly. A quick pressure.

Her fingers firm against your temples. A little sigh of relieved
suspense.

"That's wonderful on you! ... You don't! Oh, my dear! But that's
because you're not used to it. You know how you said, for years, you
had to have a brim, and couldn't possibly wear a turban, with your
nose, until I proved to you that if the head size was only big ...
Well, perhaps this needs just a lit-tle lift here. Ju-u-ust a nip.
There! That does it."

And that did it. Not that Sophy Decker ever tried to sell you a hat
against your judgment, taste, or will. She was too wise a psychologist
and too shrewd a businesswoman for that. She preferred that you go out
of her shop hatless rather than with an unbecoming hat. But whether
you bought or not you took with you out of Sophy Decker's shop
something more precious than any hatbox ever contained. Just to hear
her admonishing a customer, her good-natured face all aglow:

"My dear, always put on your hat before you get into your dress. I do.
You can get your arms above your head, and set it right. I put on my
hat and veil as soon's I get my hair combed."

In your mind's eye you saw her, a stout, well-stayed figure in tight
brassiere and scant slip, bare-armed and bare-bosomed, in smart hat and
veil, attired as though for the street from the neck up and for the
bedroom from the shoulders down.

The East End set bought Sophy Decker's hats because they were modish
and expensive hats. But she managed, miraculously, to gain a large and
lucrative follo